Digging to America (3 page)

She went out to the kitchen and took the rice off the stove and dumped it briskly into a colander.

By the time Ziba had returned from work, Susan would b
e
awake again and drinking her post-nap sippy cup of apple juice, or she'd have moved on to haul forth from the toy chest everything that Maryam had put away. Ziba would scoop her up even before she'd taken her blazer off. Did you have fun with your Mari -june, Su-Su? Did you miss your mommy? They would delicately touch noses Ziba's profile beaky and sharp, Susan's as flat as a cookie. Did you think your mommy would stay away forever? Always she spoke English to Susan; she said she didn't want to confuse her. Maryam had expected her to lapse into Farsi from time to time, but Ziba plowed heroically through the most difficult words think, with its sticky th sound, and stay, which came out es-stay. (To her own puzzlement, Maryam found Ziba's broken rhythms much easier to understand than Sami's smooth, easy flow.)

Maryam located her purse and put on her suede jacket. Don't go! Ziba would say. What's your hurry? Let me make tea. Most days, Maryam declined. Issuing farewell remarks instructions for heating dinner, message from the dentist's office she would blow a kiss toward Susan and let herself out the front door. She was trying to be the perfect mother-in-law. She didn't want Ziba to consider her a nuisance.

Often when she reached home she would just vegetate awhile, slumped in her favorite armchair, free at last to relax and let herself be herself.

Jin-Ho's mother phoned in October to invite them all to supper. This was while Maryam was babysitting, and so she was the one who answered. You come too, Bitsy told her. It's going to be just us, our two families, because I believe the girls should get to know each other, don't you? So as to maintain their cultural heritage. I meant to ask you before this but what with one thing an
d
another ... An early, early supper, I thought, on Sunday afternoon. We'll rake leaves beforehand.

Maryam said, Rake ... ?

She wondered if this was some idiomatic expression having to do with socializing. Break the ice, mend fences, chew the fat, rake leaves ... But Bitsy was saying, We still have elms, believe it or not, and they're always the first trees to shed. We thought we'd throw a big jolly leaf-raking party and let the girls roll around in the piles.

Oh. All right. You're very kind, Maryam said.

She liked the way Bitsy called the babies the girls. It made her visualize a Susan of the future, wearing knee socks and a pleated skirt, with her arm linked through her best friend's arm.

Logically, they should have taken separate cars to the leaf-raking party. The Donaldsons lived in Mount Washington and Maryam a short distance south of them, in Roland Park. (The wrong side of Roland Park, so called, although even the wrong side was very nice, the houses just a bit smaller and closer together.) Sami and Ziba, coming from the north, would have to drive right past the Donaldsons' neighborhood to get to Maryam's; but even so, they insisted on giving her a ride. Maryam suspected that this was because Ziba felt the need of moral support. Ziba was subject to fits of insecurity every now and then. And sure enough, when they arrived at Maryam's where Maryam was already waiting out front, so as not to hold them up Ziba popped from the car to announce that they were going to come in for a moment because she worried they were too early. Maryam said, Early? She checked her watch. It was 3:55. They'd been invited for four o'clock, and the drive would take roughly five minutes. We're not early! she said. But Ziba was already extricating Susan from her car seat. Sami, stepping out from behind the wheel, said, Ziba claims that four o'clock means ten past four, in Baltimore.

Not when only one set of guests has been invited, Maryam told him. (She had studied these customs at some length herself.) But Ziba had Susan in her arms by now and was coming up the front walk. She wore the offhand kind of clothes appropriate for leafraking jeans and a bulky rose turtleneck but had obviously spent some time on her hair and makeup. A huge, horizontal ponytail jutted from the back of her head, so frizzy that it defied gravity, and her lips were two different colors, shiny pink outlined in a red that was almost black. You look very nice, Maryam told her. She meant this sincerely. Ziba was a strikingly pretty young woman. And Sami was so handsome! He had his father's chiseled mouth and thick eyebrows. His rimless, old-man spectacles somehow made him seem younger, and the collar of his plaid flannel shirt stood up boyishly at the back. Ten minutes early, ten minutes late, what difference does it make? he asked his mother. He kissed her on both cheeks. Check out Susan's work clothes.

Susan wore blue denim overalls, faded convincingly at the knees, and a chambray shirt. Her jacket, also blue denim, had a tractor appliquTd on one pocket. You're all ready to help us rake! Maryam told her, and she lifted her from Ziba's arms.

We're bringing a bottle of wine, Ziba said. What do you think? Is that wrong? I know it's still daylight, but we're staying for supper, after all.

Wine is perfect, Maryam said, jouncing Susan on her hip. We should certainly bring wine. Isn't that so, Susie -june.

Susan gave her a secretive smile.

Shall we go in and sit down? Ziba asked.

What for? We'll just have to get up again, Sami said. She acts like it's some big deal, he told his mother, and then to Ziba he said, We visit people all the time. Why is this any different?

But these people are older than our other friends, Ziba said. Bitsy is forty, she told Maryam. She mentioned it on the phone.

She's a weaver and she used to teach yoga and she writes poetry and ... oh, what will we talk about? she ended on a wailing note. Babies, Maryam said.

Ah, Ziba said, brightening. Babies.

What else do we talk about, these days? Sami asked the sky. The Donaldsons' baby is keeping her Korean name for good, Ziba told Maryam.

Jin-Ho Donaldson, Maryam tried out. It had a peculiar ring. Donaldson seemed so ultra-American, or was that because she was reminded of McDonald's hamburgers?

Jin-Ho Dickinson-Donaldson, actually, Ziba said.

Maryam's jaw dropped. Sami laughed. Then he said, Okay, folks, it's four o'clock. Time to hit the road.

Ziba turned to follow him back to the car, but she seemed to be lagging a bit, Maryam noticed.

As always, the two women had their ceremonial disagreement about who should sit where. Please, Ziba said, gesturing toward the front, but Maryam said, I like the back. This way I sit next to Susan. She handed Susan to Ziba, who would make quicker work of buckling her in, and walked around the rear of the car to slip in on the other side. Sami had his seat adjusted far enough back so that it touched her knees, but not uncomfortably. She had spoken the truth when she said she preferred to sit there. How awkward if she had assumed the seat of honor, as her own mother-in-law used to do! Although she had an odd sense of being a child again, Susan's sibling, as the two of them swayed from side to side when Sami turned a corner.

The Donaldsons' house was a worn white clapboard Colonial on one of the narrower streets in Mount Washington. The sprawling, woodsy yard was ankle-deep in yellow leaves that clattered as the Yazdans waded up the front walk, and the porch was strewn with bicycles and boots and garden tools. It was Brad who opened th
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door, wearing corduroys and a woolen shirt stretched taut across his belly. Well, hey! he said. Welcome! Great to see you! and he chucked Susan under the chin. This kid has plumped up some. She was looking a bit peaked at the airport.

Fifteen pounds, three ounces, at her last doctor visit, Ziba told him.

Fifteen? He frowned.

And three ounces.

I guess she's going to be one of those petite little people, he said.

Jin-Ho was going to be an Amazon, Maryam thought when she saw her straddling Bitsy's waist. She was stocky and bloomingly healthy-looking, with fat cheeks and bright, laughing eyes. She still wore that squared-off hairstyle she had arrived with, seemingly all of a piece, and although she too was in corduroys, her top was a multicolored, quilted affair with striped sleeves and a black silk sash the kind of thing Maryam recalled from the days when Sami and Ziba were researching Korea. Hasn't she grown? Bitsy asked, shifting Jin-Ho slightly to give everyone a good view. These pants are size eighteen months! We had to switch her to a full crib the second week she was here.

Bitsy herself wore a black-and-white-striped jersey and black slacks and fluorescent jogging shoes. There was something aggressive about her plainness, Maryam thought her blatant lack of makeup, her chopped hair and angular, rawboned body. She might almost be making a statement. Next to her, Ziba looked very glamorous but also a little bit flashy.

First they sat a few minutes in the living room, waiting for Jin-Ho's grandparents. Both couples were coming, Bitsy said, but none of the aunts or uncles or cousins because too large a crowd might overwhelm the girls. In fact, the girls seemed fairly impervious. They sat on a braided rug and pursued their separate activitie
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Jin-Ho piling alphabet blocks into a dump truck, Susan trying to maneuver a jingle-bell out of a wooden rattle. Susan was so sweet and intent, and her fingers worked so cleverly, that Maryam wondered if the Donaldsons might feel slightly envious.

Bitsy and Ziba were discussing lactose intolerance. Bitsy blamed it on a clash of cultures. It wasn't in the Asian tradition to slug down gallons of milk, after all. No wonder Jin-Ho had tummy trouble! Did Susan? Or ... Bitsy grew unaccountably flustered. Or maybe your people don't drink milk either, she said.

Well, Susan does, Ziba said, but so far she's been fine.

You might want to give her soy milk. Soy is more culturally appropriate.

Oh, maybe I will, Ziba said obligingly.

Though Maryam, in her place, would have asked why. Hadn't Ziba just now said that Susan was fine?

The Donaldsons' living room was attractive without trying too hard. Sunlight poured through the uncurtained windows, and the furniture was old but well made, perhaps handed down from previous generations. Brad was slouched in a leather armchair that creaked each time he moved. Sami sat in an antique rocker a good six inches lower. He was nodding at Brad's description of the joys of fatherhood. Sunday mornings, Jin-Ho and I go out for croissants and the New York Times, Brad said. It's my favorite thing of the week. I love it! Just me and my kid together. You ever do that with Susan? Go off on your own for a jaunt?

So far Sami lacked the confidence to do that, Maryam knew. But he didn't admit it. Gazing up at Brad from his lowered position, which made him seem touchingly humble, he said, Well, I've been thinking of buying a jogging stroller.

Jogging stroller! Great invention. Fellow up the street has one. I'll find out the brand. Be good for your wife, too; good for Ziba. Get her out of the house.

Zee-buh, he said, almost zebra, and he slid her a look. American men always found Ziba mesmerizing. Maryam was amused to see that Brad despite choosing such a homespun wife himself
was no exception.

The two sets of grandparents arrived at nearly the same time, Bitsy's parents first and Brad's close on their heels. Bitsy's parents were big and gray and friendly, Dave in coveralls like some ordinary yardman and Connie in sweatpants and the same bandanna-print cap she'd had on at the airport. Brad's parents, with their glittery blond hair and matching velour warm-up suits, seemed a little more formal. Pat and Lou, their names were. The man was Pat and the woman was Lou, or was it the other way around? Maryam knew she was going to have trouble with that.

For a few minutes the four of them performed their grandparent dance around the babies. They exclaimed at Jin-Ho's quilted top, which Connie called by a foreign name, and made a nice to-do over Susan. Isn't she just like a miniature! Brad's mother caroled, and Dave scooped her right up. Luckily, Susan took this in stride. She reached for one of his curly gray sideburns and gave it a tug, dead serious, knitting her brow when he chuckled.

See how Jin-Ho looks so tan-skinned next to Susan, Ziba pointed out. We think Susan's father maybe was white.

Yes, you're just a little white tooth of a thing, Dave told Susan, but Bitsy jumped in with, Oh! Well! But actually that's not something we would notice, really!

There was a silence. Ziba rounded her eyes at Maryam Why not? and Maryam gave the tiniest shrug. Then Brad said, So any-ways. You guys ready to tackle those leaves?

Judging by the number of rakes propped out on the porch, Maryam guessed the Donaldsons had held these gatherings before. She would never have done that herself (she kept after her own leaves singlehandedly from the day they began to fall), but that wa
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Americans for you. And it did turn out to be a real social event. For one thing, they were all put to work on the same section of yard, so that conversation could flow. And then there was no sense of pressure. Brad's mother didn't even make a pretense of raking, but appointed herself the baby-watcher and stood over Jin-Ho and Susan where they sat among the leaves. Bitsy's mother sank immediately into a canvas chair that her husband brought down from the porch, and she tipped her face up to the sunlight and closed her eyes. That cap made sense, all at once. She was ill, Maryam realized; she must have lost her hair. Even though Dave raked with the others, he stopped frequently to go over to her and ask if she was all right. Yes, fine, Connie said each time, and she would smile and pat his hand. Clearly it was from her that Bitsy got her no-nonsense looks, although Connie seemed softer than Bitsy and more retiring.